Unlike the unwanted, supernatural characters at its core,
director Gil Kenan’s Poltergeist does not overstay its welcome. Playing somewhat like a Cliff’s Notes version
of the Tobe Hooper/Steven Spielberg classic, this re-do recreates, and
sometimes improves upon, the many iconic moments from the 1982 feature, wasting
little time to deliver one round after another of effective scares. That they don’t feel all that fresh is due
not only to its remake status but because so many other effective fright films
in recent years have covered similar territory, making it difficult for Kenan
and screenwriter David Lindsay-Abaire to bring anything new to the table.
The premise is a familiar one so Kenan dispenses with it
quickly – Eric and Amy Bowen (Sam Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt, both very
good) are in the market to downsize, as he’s been recently laid off, and find a
heck of a deal on a roomy house in a nice subdivision. Not wanting to look this gift horse in the
mouth, the close on it, move in and the spooky shenanigans begin. Their
youngest, Madison (Kennedi Clements) begins having conversations with someone
or something in her closet, middle-child Griffin (Kyle Catlett) draws the short
straw and gets the attic bedroom where he discovers a creepy clown collection,
while their eldest Kendra (Saxon Sharbino)…well, she’s a teenage girl so she’s
too wrapped up in herself to be aware of things that go bump in the night.
Films of this sort live and die by their set pieces and
Kenan is able to stage them in such a way that more than a few genuine scares
are delivered. Utilizing computer graphics to their full potential, the
director creates a sense of pervasive malevolence in the Bowen’s home that
genuinely unsettling. Kendra’s encounter
with muck-covered ghosts in their garage is unsettling, while the infamous tree
from the first film takes on a life, and indeed a personality of its own here
that prompted giggles of anticipation as to what it had in store for poor
Griffin. As for the clowns, let’s just say if you suffer from Coulrophobia,
dismiss any idea you may have of seeing this film thinking that in facing your
fear, you may be cured. This is a
wrong-headed notion that should be abandoned at all costs. You’ve been warned.
With films of this sort, so much depends on the skill of its
child performers and Kenan is fortunate to have found Clements and Catlett. The
former is key to our buying into the premise and that she’s able to convey a
belief in these malevolent intruders not only makes it easier for the audience
play along but raises the emotional stakes as well. Catlett is also very good, going from a
tremulous child to one of great bravery and confidence, all of it done with
nary a self-conscious gesture or line reading. Unlike most child performers, we
look forward to their scenes as opposed to dreading them. As expected, Rockwell and DeWitt are solid
while the script’s one innovation – that of bringing in a rakish paranormal
investigator as opposed to the minute elderly psychic played by Zelda
Rubinstein in the original – is justified by the self-aware, humorous turn by
Jared Harris as Carrigan Burke.
As well done as this ghost story is, it can’t
help but suffer in comparison to the Hooper original as well as recent entries
such as Insidious, The Conjuring, Sinister as well as many others. While
Kenan and company should be commended for a fine job, they’re unable to scare
up anything new where the haunted house genre is concerned.
This article appears in May 21-27, 2015.
